HOMEBREW Digest #461 Tue 17 July 1990

FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:Brew-in-a-bag (Ihor W. Slabicky)kegs into brewpots (Donald P Perley)Mashing and aluminum (Eric Pepke)Popped-out malt cans (sfisher)Re: Ginger Beer (Dr. Tanner Andrews)
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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 12:02:54 -0400
From: iws at sgfb.ssd.ray.com (Ihor W. Slabicky)
Subject: Brew-in-a-bag
Has anyone tried a product called Brew In A Bag yet? I have seen
it in Canada, in Lager and Bitter, made by some company in England.
It sells for $30 Can. It is a big plastic bag with the ingredients
inside it. Supposedly you add water, and let it brew away, then
pour yourself a brew right from the bag. You get some 40 bottles
worth of beer.
I haven't tried homebrewing beer yet, so I thought this might be an
easy way to try it. Or should I take the $30 Can. and buy some
Canadian beer (I get about the same amount of beer for that price).
Reply via email or to HBDigest is fine!
iws at sgfb.ssd.ray.com
Ihor
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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 13:14:55 EDT
From: perley at glacier.crd.ge.com (Donald P Perley)
Subject: kegs into brewpots
Re copper vs stainless:
>. I don't know if there are any
>advantages to either, except you don't have to worry about oxidation of the
>stainless...
Copper transmits heat a lot better than stainless. Before stainless,
it's competition would have been iron or plain steel. Either of those would
leave a metallic taste in the beer.
>Dave> I don't like the idea of using gas pipe
same problem.. taste.
Dave> To anticipate your next question, how do you fire the thing?
The easiest way is to use one of those "outdoor cookers". They run on
propane, and come with a stand. I have seen them rated from 30,000 to
75,000 BTUs, compared to 15,000 for a typical gas kitchen range
burner, and maybe 5-6,000 for an electric range element. One of the
mail order homebrew places used to carry them, but I have seen them in
hardware stores too.
-don perley
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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 1990 15:34:14 EDT
From: PEPKE at SCRI1.SCRI.FSU.EDU (Eric Pepke)
Subject: Mashing and aluminum
Chris Shenton asks about mashing methods. I do decoction mashes, but I'm still
trying to get the hang of this method.
Alan Duester suggests testing for aluminum with sodium hydroxide (lye).
BEWARE! One product of this reaction is gaseous hydrogen. Do not do this
around a source of ignition.
Eric Pepke INTERNET: pepke at gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke at fsu
Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke at fsu
Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 12:57:19 PDT
From: sfisher at wsl.dec.com
Subject: Popped-out malt cans
I recently ordered a batch of stuff from The Home
Brewery in southern California. I've had very good
experiences from them in the past six months, which
is as long as I've been brewing.
We made some good beer out of the first few things
we got from them. After the first batch went into
secondary, we sat down to make some more beer with
the rest of the order.
To our surprise, of the four remaining cans of malt,
three -- all from the UK -- had expanded. The bottoms
of the cans had bulged outward. The fourth can, an
Alexander's pale, was not bulged.
We called THB and got the new owners, who say that
they've seen a lot of this lately and it appears to
be a harmless form of wild yeast that's infected some
British malts. They recommend extra boiling -- another
30 minutes or so -- to make sure it's killed off.
My concern, of course, is botulism. I don't want to
make poisoned beer...
Anyone have any ideas on this? I would tend to believe
these people but I would also like confirmation before
I go to the trouble of making a batch of bad ale (or
throwing out $30 worth of good malt, if it comes to that).
(BTW, we ended up using the 4.5-lb can of Alexander's
Pale with 2 lb of wild honey in a spinoff of the
Rocky Racoon Honey Lager. We used Edme Ale Yeast,
Fuggles pellets for bittering and Kent Goldings leaf
for finishing. We bottled last night, and it's going
to be a good beer, I think -- a lovely pale yellow
and very refreshing!)
Thanks,
- --Scott
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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 7:14:56 EDT
From: Dr. Tanner Andrews <tanner at ki4pv.compu.com>
Subject: Re: Ginger Beer
) I speculated that there was something in the peel of ginger which
) yeast marginally disliked.
I sure hope not. I've been making ginger beer (the soft drink)
for a couple of years, and I've never peeled the ginger. My
practice is to just grate the stuff.
If that's going to ruin the product, I wish you would have warned
me in sooner.
- --
...!{bikini.cis.ufl.edu allegra uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #461, 07/17/90
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